Got It Made

Anyone after vivid location footage of Norwich and Norfolk in 1974 is advised to seek this film out, as there are plenty. It all looks rather lovely and quintessentially English. There are also some nice shots of west London, in particular the Westway, which is at one point shot at night, the vehicles speeding through bluey-blackness to... who knows where?

Get It Made is a curious effort, moving at a leisurely pace and rarely very dramatic, which probably had little wide general appeal at the time. That may explain its descent into obscurity. There are long, dawdling shots of streets, waterways and buildings punctuating the story of an upper-class girl who is soon to be married but doesn't love her husband-to-be. She hangs out with an American guitarist as well as her sexually liberated Scandinavian friend Anna and begins to realise there is more to life.

Interestingly, the next film the director made after this was the erotic horror film Expose, with Fiona Richmond, and there are hints of eroticism here too. Lalla Ward briefly gets topless in the dark but it's the gorgeous Katya Wyeth who provides brief full frontal nudity in a memorable sequence where she simply answers the phone. '74 I do adore.

Some will find this film boring, and it is slight and a little pretentious perhaps, but there's intelligence behind it, and it provides rewards for 1970s nostalgists, Norwich-heads and Katya fans. Very very hard to see now, I somehow have it on DVD and wouldn't readily part with it.